Donald Trump announced earlier this week that he will attend Sunday’s Super Bowl game in New Orleans.
One problem—the Kansas City Chiefs star tight end, Travis Kelce, is dating the voice of his opposing voter base.
Taylor Swift has an undeniable influence that even Trump can’t ignore. From dewy-eyed tweens to childless cat ladies, the “Bad Blood” hitmaker has riled up a fanbase on a platform of Democratic values—and doing so from a worldwide stage.
Meanwhile, all Trump can really do is throw out random Truth Social posts like, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” after Swift endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Taylor Swift’s post endorsing Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Of course, Swift has done her own condemning as well. In 2020, the singer called out Trump for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism” amid the George Floyd protests after he tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
In her tweet, she wrote, “We will vote you out in November.”
Returning to the Super Bowl, it seems like Kelce tried to play diplomat when asked how he felt about the president attending the game.
Kelce called it “cool” and said it was a “great honor,” which, of course, didn’t land well with Swifties.
But Trump’s visit won’t just be awkward because of Swift—Trump has a deeply contentious history with the NFL.
Back in 2016, when Colin Kaepernick and other players began kneeling in response to police brutality, Trump started openly attacking the NFL and its athletes.
In 2018, Trump suggested kicking football players out of the country who kneeled during the national anthem.
Donald Trump throws a football during a visit to Iowa State University before a Sept. 2023 college football game in Ames, Iowa.
"You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing, you shouldn't be there, maybe you shouldn't be in the country,” he said while praising a then-ban on kneeling.
Then, in 2020, the NFL did something it had never done before when the league stood up to Trump by standing with its players.
This was the start of the “end racism” slogan, which the NFL plans to not include during the big game on Sunday.
However, commissioner Roger Goodell insisted that the NFL is standing by DEI initiatives, which Trump has openly attacked.
“We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League,” Goodell said. “And we’re going to continue those efforts because we’ve not only convinced ourselves, we’ve proven it to ourselves—it does make the NFL better.”
Related story: NFL makes a weird play before Trump attends the Super Bowl
Either way, Trump will enter a stadium packed with fans and players who haven’t always been on team MAGA.
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